By Kenzie Love
Aster Group Environmental Services Co–op was formed in Sackville, New Brunswick in 2013 with a mandate to donate 10 percent of its profits to an environmental charity. In the absence of an existing charity suited to this purpose, however, the Aster Foundation was created in 2017, charged with making annual grants to environmental projects within the province (it has also supported projects in Nova Scotia).
“There’s not a lot of funding that goes to New Brunswick organizations for environmental work,” says Raissa Marks, Chair of the organization’s Board. “And so we’re really able to kind of fill that gap and fund good projects that would probably not see the light of day without our input.”
Despite this lack of philanthropy from outside the province, the Aster Foundation was able to build on New Brunswick’s strong environmental movement, one supported by the government-based Environmental Trust Fund and the New Brunswick Environmental Network, the largest provincial network of its kind in Canada.
After its first grant to a community garden project in the 2021-22 funding cycle, the Foundation encountered a lack of suitable applications the following year. This spurred it to revamp its funding model to focus more on capacity building, which proved to be an effective choice.
“We decided we would pay for organizations to access expertise from an expert,” says Marks. “So whether that was a lawyer or accountant or someone to develop a volunteer program, that really did seem to work.”
Continuing with the capacity building model, the Foundation awarded three grants in September 2025, providing funding to La Bikery, a non-profit community cooperative in Moncton, to provide training to employees and volunteers and improve its internal management tools; the Atlantic Wildlife Institute (AWI) to coordinate local, regional, and provincial efforts to protect the Chignecto Isthmus, a vital ecological corridor; and East Coast Environmental Law to develop a bilingual legal education resource for New Brunswick youth.
Although the Foundation doesn’t have any specific goals for the coming years, it hopes to continue being able to address the needs of environmental organizations within the province, and would like to receive more individual donations in addition to the money it receives from the Aster Foundation. Despite its modest means as an all-volunteer organization, Marks still finds her involvement with the Foundation a rewarding experience.
“I spent a long time in the environmental nonprofit sector,” she says. “And so I know there’s a real need out there. And so the thing that’s been most rewarding for me is to be able to help fill that need and fund projects that are worthwhile and valuable and that have a real impact on the community.”